My Masterpiece

Ever since my daughter was born in mid 2006, it has been my wish to paint her. If I had captured every pose that I wanted, my house would be running out of space now. I never got to doing it though, as I was too apprehensive to try my hand at her. Whether the artist in me was good enough to satisfy the mom in me was the big question. No matter what the artist did, the mom would always feel that justice has not been done to the original masterpiece.

Anyway after mustering sufficient courage, I went ahead with it, near life size. The piece measures 20 * 30 inches. Capturing her million dollar smile was such a big challenge. Her naughty smile and her endearing eyes took much more time than I ever imagined. Neither the artist nor the mom are satisfied, for obvious reasons. While the artist feels there is always scope some improvement, the mom is quite convinced no artist can ever match her precious princess. :-)

My Masterpiece
Acrylics on Canvas, 20 * 30 inches
Copyright Nithya Swaminathan

This would not have been possible without the help of my dad, who was guiding me through every step and was pointing out minor mistakes and suggesting changes. After every time when I thought I had got the resemblance right, my dad would point out at least 2 mistakes, and so it was a very slow progress. I should quickly add though, that he did not touch the canvas and it is entirely mine.

I posted the portrait on WetCanvas and got some very valuable feedback. Almost everyone felt that the foot was oversized. It was pointed out by my dad too earlier, but since I was too engrossed in getting her face right, I did not pay attention to the foot. Also, when the see the image in real, since the canvas is quite large, the proportion did not strike me. It looked terrible though when I saw the image on my system, in a smaller size. I have now corrected the foot, made it more like a baby's than mine :-D I also made the face a tad more chubby, just one more stroke and I feel it has made a huge difference. See the updated version below.

My Masterpiece - updated
Acrylics on Canvas, 20 * 30 inches
Copyright Nithya Swaminathan

This painting has been done from a photo of my little girl on her first birthday, so she is all dressed up wearing the traditional South Indian attire. I hope I get to paint a little more of her. Your comments are welcome.